A look at July baseball card releases

Topps' signature complete set comes out this month

Upper Deck Icons: Autographed cards from 30 rookies, as well as signed memorabilia cards from legends such as Cal Ripken, Tony Gwynn and Carlton Fisk, are among the highlights of the debut of Upper Deck Icons Baseball, which ships July 14.

The 160-card base set consists of 100 veterans, 30 rookies and 30 autographed rookie cards. The rookie autographs are numbered to 999 or fewer.

Memorabilia cards are inserted at an average of two per 10-pack box, while autographs are found one per box. Each six-card pack features either an insert, parallel, Lettermen insert, memorabilia card or autograph card.

Topps Chrome: Topps Chrome offers an international touch with the inclusion of 100 players who participated in this year's World Baseball Classic.

Japanese stars Yu Darvish, Norichika Aoki, Hisashi Iwakuma, Masahiro Tanaka, and Cuban standouts Yoennis Cespedes and Aroldis Chapman are among the WBC stars included in the set. The WBC cards are inserted at an average rate of one in four packs.

Autographed cards of rising stars such as Matt LaPorta, Koji Uehara and Elvis Andrus are among the 23 players whose signatures can be found in the set. An average of two Autographed Chrome Rookie cards are found within each Hobby box.

The Chrome base set contains 220 base cards and five levels of parallel inserts. There are also five parallel levels of the autographed cards.

Chrome Baseball is scheduled to ship the week of July 27.

Topps Factory Sets: Also available this month is one of the popular items among card collectors each year, the complete factory-sealed sets of Topps Baseball. All 660 cards from Series One and Two are in the set. The sets sold at hobby shops include 10 additional rookie cards. There are also four team-specific factory sets, featuring all 660 cards and five bonus cards from the team (Cubs, Yankees, Mets or Red Sox) featured on the packaging. The factory sets are scheduled to be released the week of July 20.

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.